Tuesday, July 24, 2012

This blog has been pretty short on content lately, due to a combination of real-life circumstances which have left me with little to no time for posting, including the writing of a Ph.D thesis, and the birth of my second daughter. Though the baby will still keep me from sleeping for the foreseeable future, the thesis is dead and buried, and I expect to be able to post new articles with some regularity.

Anyway, today’s post is a bit of an off-topic, since instead of our usual draconic dungeoneering, I will be talking about an upcoming indie RPG – La Puerta de Ishtar. A while ago, I linked to this project when the designer of the game (as well as good friend, and regular player of my D&D campaign) Rodrigo wrote a guest post here with his impressions of the D&D Next playtest. The game has progressed quite a bit since then, to the point of starting a crowd-funding campaign which handily met its initial goal and is now in the process of beating stretch goal after stretch goal.

So what is La Puerta de Ishtar about? It’s an original take on the fantasy genre, eschewing Tolkien influences and western tropes in favor of a less familiar setting inspired by the legends and mythology of the Near East. With a straightforward system emphasizing character development and narrative elements, the game will be published as an impressive hardcover book, with over 350 pages full of gorgeous illustrations.